Resiliency Core Modules

Bill Sharp © July 8, 2020

Fifteen Transition Centre Resiliency Blueprint Core Action Modules

There are three components to the Transition Centre Resiliency Blueprint:

1.     Assessment

2.     Core Modules

3.     Implementation

The core modules represent a list of the major subsystems of a sustainable and resilient community ecosystem. Each is a planning process in its own right.  Each requires its own team.  However, it must be understood that they are all parts of an integral program.  As in any ecosystem, they are interdependent.  The relationships of the modules must be constantly reviewed.  

Transition Centre does not propose a planned economy.  It does advocate a framework that empowers planning and development of local communities.  The Blueprint provides such a framework. 

The Assessment must be completed before starting work on the core modules.  You are welcome to change the list and definition of these modules to suit your own community.  They need not all be pursed at once, however, Module 1:  Vision, is mandatory.  Module 2:  Local Food, is highly recommended as it provides a foundation for an emerging resilient economy.  

Module 1: Transition Centre Resiliency Vision 

The vision module is the outcome of the Assessment component of the Blueprint process.  It should and likely will begin to form early in the process.  Visioning is considered the core process in Resilient Communities.  It represents the identity of a mature community and sets standards by which each of the other modules may be pursued.  It is a dynamic process – a process of steady learning and adaptation.

Each community must develop its own framework for a resilient community.  The Assessment Component provides a solid understanding of your community.  It should be considered an ecosystem model – all the Modules connected.  Patrick Geddes, who pioneered the Regional Assessment constructed what he called a “thinking machine.”  I was a square of paper which each major Module of the regional ecosystem was listed.  

Starting with “Vision,” you think about and discuss each of the action modules:  food, energy, local business, etc.  And then, starting with food, explore its relationship to energy, business, etc.  The process works in reverse and different ideas can come up by comparing say energy to food.  Eventually you will get back to “Vision” and you will have a new perspective on your community ecosystem and its needs and potential.  As you work through this exercise over time, it becomes increasingly clear that whatever you do in one area, affects the others.  

The process may sound tedious at first but as you gain insights you will understand its power.  It is also a useful group exercise.  You don’t have to do it all at once in order to get energy to flow.  And you don’t stop after one round.  It is an ongoing practice.

Module 2:  Local Food 

Local food is the foundation of a regenerative local economy.  Transition Centre conducted an original assessment of our regional agricultural potential in 2008, updated in 2015 as a Local Food System Network and now continues as Foodshed Strategy.  

On the average, only a fraction of a percent of food comes from local sources.  It could be 10% within ten years if, and only if, a workable business plan and enterprise network is established.  Ten percent local, including food and related products and services, represents as much as $400 per capita.  A robust local agricultural program would create ancillary business environments:  on one side a supply chain to support farming operations and on the other a distribution chain to process, store and retail agricultural products.  In addition, research suggests that for every dollar spent for local food, an addition $4 – 7 is spent in the local market for other goods and services.  And that revenue stays in the local economy.

Home and community gardens can produce a significant (5 – 7 %) amount of fresh foods for home consumption.  The Victory Garden program of World War II produced nearly half of local food needs.  Borsodi’s homesteading model can produce nearly all of the food and other goods needed for a family and establish cooperative homesteading communities.

A vibrant local food economy cannot be developed casually.  It will only happen if a vigorous enterprise team forms for the specific purpose of getting the job done.  It is driven by the revenue and social benefit it creates.  Revenue generated by a robust local food economy can catalyze other sustainable economic sectors.  

An introduction to the Transition Centre Foodshed Strategy can be found at this link.

Module 3:  Renewable Energy

The adverse impact of fossil fuels on the environment motivates development of alternative energy.  Fossil fuels are, in any event, a non-renewable resource.  The cost of renewable energy generation has and should continue to successfully complete with fossil fuels.  A decaying national electrical infrastructure suggests the need for significant investments into local micro-grids.  Wind turbines, solar cells and passive solar heating and geothermal systems can (and are being) installed by municipalities, institutions and private interests on buildings, schools, manufacturing plants, farms, and in neighborhoods and developments as well as individual homes.  Community level enterprise can produce an economy of scale that reduces cost of equipment, installation and maintenance.  The investments needed to achieve even 10% local electrical power generation are, however, substantial and will require a dedicated and innovative professional team to accomplish.  

Our community organized a Community Solar project in 2015 with representatives from the university, local business, government and environmental interests.  Since then we have seen 4.5 megawatts installed, 3.5 in progress and 20 megawatts proposed; which will give us utility-scaled solar energy.  On the ridge overlooking our valley are a number of megawatt-range wind turbines.  As with local foods, albeit with a smaller margin due to capital investments, revenues from the installation of the micro-grid infrastructure and energy produced would accrue to the local community and not distant financial markets.

Module 4:  Local, small-scaled, business and manufacturing

A local economy is a regenerative economy (link).  It is a major part of the community ecosystem.  As an ecosystem its function is to ensure the wellbeing of all of its members.  

A global economy moved much American manufacturing offshore to cheap labor countries.  The threat of eventual rising cost of energy over the years and the disruption of supply chains during the 2020 Crisis provide increasing incentive to reestablish local manufacturing.   

Small enterprises once did and could again supply many of the commodities we need within a local trade area. They could also produce for quality, craftsmanship, durability and reliability.  There is an emerging open source manufacturing movement that provides blueprints and plans for durable goods and their manufacturing in small, local facilities.  

Communities have been increasingly pursuing development of small local manufacturing as a way to diversify their economies.  This is advantageous for communities that are in economic decline and will be of great value should college towns see reductions in residential students.  Many communities are developing more localized and sustainable business models.

Module 5:  Transportation

Transportation consumes 25% of our national energy.  We are dependent upon trucks, trains and aircraft for the delivery of goods.  We tend to make long commutes to work and for shopping.  Localization could have a significant impact on reducing transportation energy use.  Walkways and bike paths are features of quality communities.  Social distancing is also incentivizing at-home work, and reduced driving and travel.

Module 6:  Waste

The objective is zero waste.  It is not only a matter of reducing waste to start with but also of recycling waste products.  Reuse, repair and refurbishing have incredible potential for extending the life cycle of many durable goods.  Localizing production can incentivize more durable products.  Recycling is a major source of businesses and jobs.  This includes both solid and liquid wastes – such as a beneficial wastewater reuse infrastructure.  There is no excuse for organic waste going into a landfill when they can be readily converted into compost of use to local food production.  

Module 7:  Energy Conservation

Energy conservation alone could save a quarter or more in energy cost and dependency.  Conservation is mandatory in achieving energy independence.  Both remodeling and new, energy efficient construction, create local businesses and jobs.

Module 8:  “Village” Housing:  Walkable neighborhoods

Suburban housing is about large houses on large lots and a drive to market, work and recreation.  A more compact, village-scaled, living reduces the need for transportation, has a high aesthetic appeal and promotes community interaction.  There are civic spaces, community hubs, libraries and cultural centers.  Retail outlets are on the corner or around the square.  Most businesses can be placed in aesthetic architecture or located on the fringes of town.  Coworking facilities could provide office and meeting places for both employment and community activities.  Livability is in fact strongly correlated to sustainability.

There was once a popular literature on greenbelt and garden towns.  Ralph Borsodi and others designed and built pleasing developments, many on land trust.  We like to vacation is such quaint towns and villages, so why not just build them? 

Module 9:  Health

Many believe we need to restructure health care.  The pandemic tested the health care system to the limit.  The US health care system is huge and costly and yet life expectancy has been on the decline.  A localized health care system is about readily available services for all ages.  Regional hospitals would provide for more demanding care.  Medical services more closely integrated within the community encourage more healthful living and preventative care.  Both community childcare and eldercare can benefit health and wellbeing.  Local foods, more walking, less stress, less pollution and chemicals, a more pleasant environment, closer society, abundant green spaces, bike and walking paths and a stronger sense of community could all be benefits to healthier lives.  

Module 10:  Emergency Preparedness

Storms and natural disasters, toxic spills, fires and power outages and now pandemics suggest the need for short and intermediary term emergency preparedness.  Following September 11, 2001, local emergency management programs have been mandated.  Transition Centre, with its emergency management background, developed a three-day personal emergency preparedness manual and suggested a two-week neighborhood program.  Neighborhood programs could also provide support for individuals and families isolated by quarantined.  Providing greater local attention to and home-based preparation for such emergencies would enhance our sense of personal and neighborhood security, reduce the pressure on public emergency workers during emergency events, and promote community-building.

Module 11:  Community 

Traditionally communities, as once describe American culture, were tightly integrated and far more self-reliant than today.  Building a stronger local economy, where you know the people who are producing your food and other goods, serves to build stronger community.  More compact living enhances social interaction.  Local economies and community go hand in glove.

Community is about culture.  Community is a place, a people and shared values.  Sociologist of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century expressed dismay at the decline of American community.  Philosophers in Europe and Great Britain had their own experience of angst as the modern era unfolded.  Durkheim wrote of the link between alienation and suicide; Nietzsche wrote a philosophy of both despair and hope; Spengler’s history is one about breakdown and the descent into a new dark age.  Psychology since at least Freud has focused on the debilitating influence of industrial civilization.  Borsodi wrote extensively about the problem of an ugly civilization and its remediation. 

Transition Centre describes community as an ecosystem just as a lake or forest is an ecosystem.  It is a largely spontaneous association that evolves to maximize the welfare of all of its parts.  It’s not about metaphysics or ideology; it is what works for the general benefit of its members.  

Diversity, in all its forms, gives life to a community ecosystem.  Ideological and other factions that divide the community are in effect a form of cancer that eats the life out of it.  

Community includes participatory governance.  Local governments serve to maintain the good order of a community.  Local governments are not only elected officials and staff but also include a wide range of authorities, boards and commissions staffed by local community volunteers.  Local governance is covered more completely in Implementation.  

Transition Centre firmly believes that local governance, education and other services should be locally supported and not dependent on outside funding to meet the community’s basic needs.

Module 12:  Education and Training

The Transition Centre educational model integrates knowledge and living.  Traditionally education once promoted citizenship and preparation for participation in community life.  We need that again.  A community requires job training and skill development.  REconomy requires a significant amount of training at all levels from vocational skills to professional services to business development. 

Transition Centre has worked to revive a life-long, integral and problem-centered educational program.  Learning begins at home.  Beyond the home, the community itself acts as a School.  There is a school building where basic education begins and lifelong learning continues.  The School contains a library.  The School may well serve as the community center.  Learning and living are like hand and glove.  We learn in order to solve the problems of living and we learn to elevate our humanity.

Regional community universities may be established to provide more specialized training and to serve as a hub for educational development.  Both the local Schools and the Community Universities are self-governed.

High on the list of objects is the training needed to develop participatory democracy.  We are all essentially unique.  Nature endowed us with a range of competencies.  We have different styles of learning.  Each must thus have the opportunity to develop his or her own capacities to the degree they wish.

This model is based on long research into learning and living and is being synthesized in a series of books starting with Self-Reliance:  Achieving Personal Resiliency and Independence.  The well-formed personality is the foundation of the well-formed community.  We are also developing a textbook for Alfred Korzybski’s systems of evaluation and communication, general semantics.

Module 13:  Arts and Entertainment

Art and entertainment are part of our quality of life and part of the fabric of community.  Festivals and celebrations are bonding agents that create a more cohesive community.  A growing local art and entertainment sector is a part of the local economy as well.  Before the radio and TV, people learned to play music, to sing, to write and recite poetry, to enjoy great books and to converse about their learning.  

Module 14:  Land, Water and Natural Resources

Our commitment to preserving and restoring our natural environment is an important measure of our intention to achieve a sustainable future.  Preservation of natural resources is a very large part of our enjoyment of and identity with the place we live.  Our community has undertaking projects to define and enhance our watershed.  One is an online Watershed Atlas Project that solicits a wide range of articles from local authors and has taken the initiative in creating this comprehensive, and readily usable, resource.  It was organized and continues under the guidance of a group of volunteers.  We also completed a two-year study of our rather unique watershed resources and the many parties who have some say in how it is preserved and used.  It is a full-spectrum approach.

Module 15: Parks, Open Space, Recreation

Parks and recreation both help define the quality of life in a community and serves as a measure of commitment to the natural environment.  These have a strong influence in defining the quality of life of any community.  Such places have their own character and usually immediate access to natural features.  They are worth the effort to make them an expression of the sprit o the community.

Local governments, including citizen volunteer staffed parks committees, regional authorities and conservation groups do much to provide  

History and Direction of Transition Centre

Bill Sharp, Director, Transition Centre, © June 24, 2020 Updated May 5, 2023

Transition Centre was formed in 2009.  It is a registered Pennsylvania nonprofit organization (not tax exempt).  It’s roots, however, go back to 2002 when we first focused on resilient communities.  Transition Centre begin to form in 2005 following the dramatic increase in the cost of petroleum products after Hurricane Katrina.  The first week of September, immediately following the devastation of the US petroleum infrastructure in the Caribbean (which flooded much of New Orleans), followed by reduced OPEC production, saw the tripling of the cost of petroleum and petroleum products such as gasoline and heating oil.  The peak cost of a barrel of oil in 2008 coincided with the global economic collapse called the Great Recession.  Our resource dependency became painfully obvious.  The supply chain is fragile and non-renewable resources being depleted at an alarming rate.  This became the focus of our program.

Relocalization

About this time a relocalization movement was gaining ground once again.  The basic rationale is that we need to address problems at the level that we can.  Is that global, national, state or province, or local?  Local is comprehensive.  Local is home.  How do we make our home communities more viable, more secure and resilient.  

We produced our first localized sustainability plan early in 2008:  Central Pennsylvania Local Economy (CPALE).  The mission of CPALE was:

To promote rebuilding local economies through jobs in sustainable agriculture, small manufacturing, skilled crafts and services, using a business model that seeks to keep as much wealth as possible circulating within an economically viable local region.

The Vision Statement included:

A network of small, increasingly fully functional, autonomous and self-reliant communities that can produce the essentials of life and establish the political and economic foundation for a sustainable society with a high quality of life.

The CPALE project conducted a regional survey including our home county (Centre County) and the six contiguous counties.  We developed our master list of 22 basic human needs for a sustainable community.  This list was derived from a survey of the objectives of sustainability plans across the country.  It remains our core framework.  

Transition Towns

In 2008 became affiliated with the Relocalization Network – some 100 or more groups in the US and Canada. That year The Transition Handbook was published.  The book described the foundation of the Transition Towns (TT) movement started in the UK in 2006.  TT was designed as a grassroots community response to the rising cost and inevitable depletion of fossil fuels.  It also addressed the potential impact of climate change.  After the recession of 2008 it became increasingly focused on the instability of the global economy.  Towards the end of 2008 the Relocalization Network became the Transition Towns US, a nation hub organization.  We formed a local group to study The Transition Handbook.  

The objective of the Transition Towns model is to create resilience, that is, adaptability, at the local level.  The Handbook provided an effective agenda for organizing local communities to develop a unified program to insure a more secure future.

Our first major public presentation of the Transition Towns (TT) model was made at a meeting of the Spring Creek Watershed Association (SCWA) in 2009.  The Association was a leading local sustainability group.  The Association was considering the Corvallis Natural Step model for their proposed sustainability organization but wanted to look at Transition Towns.  The advantage of the grassroots Transition Town model was evident.  The Transition Centre Director subsequently became chair of the SCWC (see below).

Transition Centre

Transition Centre (TC) was founded by Bob Flatley and Bill Sharp (Transition Centre Director) as an unofficial Transition Hub for central Pennsylvania in 2009.  It was registered as a Pennsylvania nonprofit corporation.  We developed a web site and a blog to promote the Transition model.   

As a hub, we began to set up meetings and presentations locally and with other regional communities and organizations.  In February 2010 Transition Centre organized a presentation on the Transition Towns model at the annual conference of the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (which was then headquartered in a neighboring community).  Seventy-five people attended.  Three of our group attended two-day Training for Transition and in April 2010 Transition Town State College and Transition Town Bald Eagle Valley became official initiatives.

We chose to closely follow the program of The Transition Handbook and Transition in Action.  Transition in Action was the first comprehensive Transition Towns plan, defined as an Energy Descent Action Plan, or EDAP, by TT founder Rob Hopkins, and produced by his Transition Towns founding community at Totnes, UK[1].   We too wanted a comprehensive rather than piecemeal approach.  Our objective was to develop a sustainability master plan.  

We followed the twelve-step process outlined by Hopkins with modifications appropriate for our community.  For example, we didn’t need to form work groups or projects as they were plentiful in our region.

We conducted a detailed assessment of local resources – natural, economic, organizational and human.  We very early realized that our community had incredible assets, but they were poorly organized.  Our strategy became to create a virtual organization.  We have pursued what we labeled a community ecosystem.  We constructed a “Resource List.” Resources include government entities, nonprofits, higher education, conservation, environmental and sustainability groups, other community groups, and business interests.  Organizations and groups on the list are all located, or have a significant footprint, in our community.  The List was posted on our web site.   It can be sorted by primary and secondary characteristics.  There are eight categories of organizations and 64 topics they address.  The List currently has over 600 entries.  We have continued to network people and organizations over the years.  

As an initial practical project, we promoted home and community gardens.  There was one public community garden when we started.  There are now more than a dozen.  We helped create a new one in 2017 and doubled its size in 2018 on land provided by a neighborhood church.  This garden requires a tenth of our produce be given to food banks.  A community garden association was formed.

One of the strongest early partnerships we formed was with the New Leaf Initiative, formed the year after our TT initiative.   We nominated it as one of the Transition Towns’ 25 Enterprises that Build Resilience.  New Leaf was recognized as one of the premier community building organizations in the area.  Its founders were committed to sustainability.  Now other local organizations, including the university have adopted that model.

One distinction in our development is engagement with local government.  That was step nine on Rob Hopkins’ list.  We were fortunate to have participation by representatives of government entities from the beginning, not as authorities but as members of the sustainability community.  (I and several others subsequently served in public office at the local and regional level).  Transition Centre is explicitly non-partisan.  We adopted the policy of not engaging in protest or advocacy.  We have rather worked to develop collaboration around common interests.

We also developed close connections with Pennsylvania State University.  Penn State formed its own Sustainability Institute about the same time TC was formed.  

Interfaith Power and Light

In 2010 the Transition Centre Director was invited to become a founding board member of Pennsylvania Interfaith Power and Light (a faith-based climate change organization with affiliates then in 40 states).  IPL embraces participants of all faiths and creeds.  The TC Director was made officer at large and thus a member of the Executive Committee.  The Transition Town model was presented as a community building program to faith communities.  Many presentations were made in local communities and at conferences, workshops and sustainability events and festivals across the state.

Ralph Borsodi and his School of Living

From the beginning there has been a link between Transition Centre and the founding principles of Ralph Borsodi’s School of Living.  This connection goes back some years to a project named Cove Institute (name inspired by an ocean cove where several related meetings were held).  In 2002 the Cove Institute was envisioned as a “resilient learning community.”  We subsequently learned that Borsodi had that vision many years ago and had developed a significant program.  That legacy, unfortunately, had been largely lost.  The Transition Centre co-founders decided to restore that legacy and bring it up to date.

The original School of Living was founded in 1934 by Ralph Borsodi.  Borsodi had become a pioneer homesteader in 1920 and published his classic Flight From the City in 1933.  He had been a consulting economist with Wall Street clients.  He wrote thoughtful critiques about the fallacies of the emerging urban-industrial commercial economy.

Borsodi was a leader in a movement that flourish in the first half of the twentieth century.  It was called New Agrarianism.  It had a Jeffersonian vision.  Borsodi believed that the family farm or homestead was the ideal social institution.  Through it the family and its members could achieve a high degree of economic and personal independence.  He also pursed the idea of local collaborative communities to provide a more solid civil foundation.  Borsodi also pioneered land trusts and local currency.

Borsodi, beginning a century ago, laid much of the foundation of what we have come to call the sustainability movement.  He developed a model homestead, homestead communities and was a pioneer in organic gardening, appropriate technology, land trust and local currency.  Above all, Borsodi was a founder of a comprehensive, problem-centered framework integral learning.  

The School of Living was developed to provide the knowledge and skills needed to achieve these objectives. Above all, however, Borsodi pursued the Jeffersonian ideal of an educated citizenry who could conduct their own affairs.  He advocated developing the highest potential of every person.  

The cofounders of Transition Centre have worked to restore the Borsodi legacy.  Two research manuscripts inceluding history, biography, principles and practices of Borsodi's legacy can be found on Internet Archive:

Ralph Borsodi, A Confident Future:  The Green Revolution, which explores the homesteading side of the Borsodi/Loomis legacy (Link)

Ralph Borsodi, A Confident Future:  Learning and Living, which explore Borsodi’s educational system (Link)

The Essential Ralph Borsodi can be downloaded at no cost at this link.  

Transition Centre is working to develop the community university model based on Borsodi's work.  The community university is a lifelong educational model intended to serve as the core educational program with the objective of meeting the community's needs for knowledge, skills and social and economic resilience.

Alternative Energy

High on our list of sustainability needs is the reduction of our fossil fuels dependency.  In 2012 we published two comprehensive articles on energy (to a large national audience).  These articles were posted on the Transition Centre blog site (link and link)

In 2013, in response to growing concern about shale gas development, we organized a well-attended public conference.  We had world-renowned climate scientist Richard Alley and a noted Penn State shale gas expert to present both sides of the issue.  Seventy people attended.  Responding to demand, a second conference was held in which we invited our two speakers and added two renewable energy experts to form a panel.  The local Public Issues Forum sponsored a third forum, based on our program.  It was a well-attended day-long event promoted county-wide.   A booklet was produced, drafted by Transition Centre, about the issues involved in the shale industry.  Contested then, recently the shale gas industry has acknowledged our thesis that renewable energy is becoming more cost effective and that shale gas is a transitional technology.

Community Solar

In 2014 - 2015 we participated in a six-month program to explore community solar sponsored by Penn State.  That program brought community leaders together in a facilitated dialog.  Subsequently, Transition Centre prepared a draft for ten percent residential photovoltaic.  The solar alternative has gained momentum locally.  In the past year or so, 4.5 megawatts of solar, one of the most extensive developments in the state, has been installed in our region, another 3.5 megawatts in development and a 20 megawatt utility-scaled system proposed.  We have a large number of wind turbines on nearby ridges to take advantage of reliable wind flows over the region.

Mid-Atlantic Region

We were invited into a Mid-Atlantic regional group in January 2012.  It consisted of Transition Town members mostly in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware.  That group continued to grow and in November 2013 the Mid-Atlantic Transition Hub (MATH) was incorporated.  The Transition Centre Director was a founding member of the MATH Board.  It had participants from states ranging from Connecticut to Virginia.  The original regional group, interested parties not on the board, was designated the MATH Council.

MATH started with the mission of reconnecting and revitalizing the some two-dozen Transition Towns (and many other mulling groups) in the Mid-Atlantic states.  We sought to break the sense of isolation that had settled on the TT movement nationwide.  Lacking effective regional associations, a great many Transition Initiatives and groups dropped out of the network.  

As a result of heavily impacted Hurricane Sandy on the Mid-Atlantic coast, we worked on disaster recovery.  Transition Centre took the lead on developing a three-day emergency preparedness handbook which has been made available to Transition US (The Transition Centre Director had served in a state-level emergency management command post).  A chapter for a two-week plan for emergency manage was proposed for Transition Streets by Transition Centre.

The MATH board, for a variety of organization reasons, disbanded after a few years.  The MATH Council renamed itself Mid-Atlantic State Transitions (MAST) and continues to meet by phone monthly.  Several of its members have become leaders of the Transition US movement.

Shrinking Cities

Transition Centre continued to focus on regional issues in the Northeast.  We became increasingly aware of a class of communities variously labeled as shrinking, forgotten or distress.  On a personal note, my hometown hit the list as the number one fastest shrinking city in the US.  It has also been listed as one of the most dangerous places to live in the US.  One of our TC collaborators and IPL board members lived in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, currently ranked the number two US fastest shrinking city.  

The case for these communities as made in a 2007 Harvard study, The Voice of Forgotten Cities.  The study identified 150 smaller cities, mostly in Pennsylvania, New York and other northeastern states, that have been left behind by globalization and essentially forgotten.  They are rust belt or brownfield places with vacant factories and commercial buildings, vacant residential lots, high unemployment, high crime rates, and high poverty rates.  Following the 2008 Great Recession, more communities were put on the list as economically “distressed.”  Forbes constructed its own list of “Miserable Cities.”  As of Winter 2020, one-third of American counties and 40% of American small towns were listed as “shrinking.”  The COVID-19 pandemic will likely add significantly to this list.

These trends motivated the continued evolution of the Transition Centre mission.  Our sustainability master plan (below) was designed in part to provide a template for redeveloping such places.  Since governments have been unable to stem the decline of these communities, we proposed the grassroots Transition model but found that it needed significant development.  In 2018, the University of Pittsburg invited Transition Centre to prepare a presentation on Resilient Communities addressed to shrinking communities.  The final report was posted by two national organizations.  “Building a Resilient Community” can be found on the Transition Centre blog site.  

Sustainability Master Plan

The primary objective of our Transition program was to develop a sustainability master plan for our community as proposed in The Transition Handbook and Transition in Action.  It appears we are one of a handful, out of nearly 170 US Transition Towns, to seriously attempt such a plan. And arguably the most comprehensive of them.  

For two years after founding our two Transition initiatives, we worked on awareness building and networking. The shale gas events gave us the momentum to move into preparing our sustainability planning program.  That plan was published as the Centre [County] Sustainability Master Plan (CSMP) in August 2014.  While Penn State has a comprehensive sustainability strategy (that has been highly effective), the Transition Centre plan is the most comprehensive regional approach off campus.   

Some 200 people participated in the development of the plan over a two-year period.  There were a number of public meetings and planning sessions.  We participated in other conferences and workshops, often making presentations.  We developed our comprehensive resource assessment.  Preparation included extensive research into sustainable communities and sustainability planning across the country.  We carefully assessed why sustainability planning efforts often fell short of expectations.  There was a growing literature available.  

Our plan was developed as a template.  It was constructed around our list of basic human needs cited earlier.  Instead of a twenty-year projection of development as proposed by Transition in Action, we devised a policy called “Vision 10 – 10:  Ten Percent in Ten Years.”  In short, our premise is that ten percent of a problem can be more readily visualized and addressed than the whole thing.  Once ten percent is achieved, the framework for expansion is well in place.  

The CSMP was being revised and updated as the Transition Centre Resilient Communities Blueprint when the pandemic occurred.  This update continues as the 2020 Crisis unfolds.

Ten Percent Local Food

In 2012 we published an article on the “Local Food Revolution.”  

In 2015 we formally launched Ten Percent Local Food at a local sustainability festival.  Our region is promising.  We are at the center of that large valley with rich farmland and many small farms.  It is Amish country.

Ten Percent Local Food has objectives including food security, health, and preservation of farmland.  We also proposed a local food enterprise incubator and demonstration site with a high production micro-farm.  A homesteading model, with a local demonstration homestead, is also proposed.  One of the benefits of ten percent local food for us would be $400,000 per 1,000 population in revenue that would stay in the community.  We have continued awareness raising and networking with the objective of forming a local collaborative.  That idea has steadily developed through the efforts of a number of organizations and community leaders.  We have subsequently moved to a more comprehensive foodshed strategy model (below).

International Collaboration

In the Spring of 2015, Penn State invited several Transition Towns leaders to participate in an intensive three-day workshop to develop a proposal for “Addressing the Climate Crisis through Value Transformation.”  The workshop included participants from Norway, Scotland and South Africa.  Transition Centre presented Transition Town principles and the Centre Sustainability Master Plan.  This intense workshop produced a proposal for a significant level of funding from an international agency to promote transformational change.  It provided an intense focus on sustainability values and the role of college and university education in promoting climate change action.  While not funded, this exercise enhanced our approach to leadership and organization in the community. 

Sustainability Culture

Our comprehensive plan was more descriptive than prescriptive.  The reason why is that we found our community well advanced as an evolving sustainability culture.

We carefully studied leading sustainable communities.  We identified over 30 such communities and studied several of them closely.  Such cultures represent a sense of an established way of life – the way things should be.  Organizations, activities and markets have been established that are easily assessible.  

Such cultures are a product of time, several decades in fact.  The communities we studied had begun to seriously organize for sustainability in the 1970s.  The foundations for our community’s sustainability culture was laid in the 1980s.  Our resource list indicated a rich field and clear signs of development.  We decided to continue to network, connect and observe to promote our emerging culture.

Over the years, as this document suggest, a lot has happened in our community.  Perhaps one of the most significant indicators is that six of the platinum and gold level certified sustainable municipalities in Pennsylvania are those that were loosely defined as Transition Towns State College communities.  This is a tenth of those so certified in Pennsylvania.  These communities are all members of the Centre Region Council of Governments (COG).  They also represent the region defined as Transition Town State College.  COG, at about the time Transition Centre was working on our comprehensive plan, added a sustainability chapter to its comprehensive plan and more recently hired a sustainability coordinator.  Under COG and local community leadership a long list of sustainability projects have been completed and more in progress.

Again, Transition Centre’s primary goal is building connections and a sense of community.  It should be clear that we do have a very rich field of participants both within academia and in the community.  Nonetheless, we were seeing the need to raise the bar as economic and environmental issues steadily mounted.  

The COVID Recession has had a shattering impact on local cultures.  Crisis draws people into community and provides an incentive to rebuild them.  

Watershed Plan

As noted, Transition Centre formed a partnership with the Watershed Community at our beginning.  One of the most successful projects we had was a leadership role in updated our watershed-wide plan started in 2016.  This was a natural complement to our CSMP.  

Our watershed is a unique natural feature that defines our community.  In short, 135,000 people depend on a supply of water that comes from the sky above (no river runs through it) and stored in the ground below in a relative rare karst geology.  In 1996 a program was organized to define the future of the watershed.  An international panel was brought in for a week of study and meetings.  The issue was growth verses preservation of the natural setting and its resources.  

The Spring Creek Watershed Commission was formed as a result.  The Watershed Commission is a formally chartered intergovernmental agency (rather unique in form) with representatives from the twelve municipalities in the watershed, including the six certified COG municipalities.  There are also several dozen other entities including government, nonprofit and educational, with interest in land and water resources in this watershed. 

A separate body, the Spring Creek Watershed Association, is also a produce of that initial event.  The Association was formed as a volunteer group composed mostly of representatives of stakeholder organizations and interested individuals in the watershed.  As the Chair of the Spring Creek Watershed Association, the Transition Centre Director organized the 20^th anniversary celebration of our Watershed community.  

The Celebration committee documented the accomplishments of member communities and organizations over these 20 years.  We documented roughly 100 major achievement to secure a sustainable future.  In short, we have extensive studies of land use, an extensive network of stakeholders, a rare collaboration between local governments and other organizations and an enviable record of accomplishments.  These accomplishments include large tracks (hundreds of acres) of urban farmland being preserved by leading conservation groups in the area.  Local municipalities have provided support and significant funding.  Land and water, of course, being foundations for the local food movement.  

We organized a celebration lunch and a presentation keynoted by a current and two former county commissioners who had organized the Commission.  The event was recorded by our local public affairs television channel.

The major outcome of the Celebration program was the launch of a new phase of planning for a watershed-wide integrated water management plan.  The approach consisted of enlisting public, private, nonprofit and higher educational parties to developing a common vision for a sustainable future as defined by this rather unique watershed system.  A new web site was developed (link).

As a Watershed Commission member and Watershed Association chair, the Transition Centre Director took a lead role in this process.  Our steering group organized public forums, formed a work group, held numerous meetings and developed a new plan.  I summarized the findings and drafted the final (approved) report in late 2019.  That report can be found on the web site link just above.  In 2020 we move forward to developing the organization to complete a comprehensive working plan for the watershed.  It proposes a fifty-year vision.  While that program is on hold, it did provide some important infrastructure for working through the 2020 Crisis.

The Road to a Sustainable Future

In 2017, the focus of Transition Centre turned to the problem of organizational capacity.  We developed a new theme:  “The Road to a Sustainable Future.”  

The genesis of “The Road to a Sustainable Future” was in part the growing evidence that efforts to mitigate climate change were losing ground.  Perhaps of greater importance was the realization that a growing list of sustainability organizations, and particularly new initiatives, were struggling to form or thrive.  Without leadership and organization, and particularly lacking synergetic networking between like-minded parties; individuals, groups and organizations are experiencing frustration, loosing affiliations, and fading away.  Some do well, many do not.  Our research during the planning process defined the problems and best practices.  This program probed the assumptions of the sustainability movement relative to recent trends in environment and economy.  Read more at this link.

Resilient Communities

Transition Centre and the Centre Sustainability Master Plan continued to evolve.  Our focus became increasingly on a regenerative economy, community as ecosystem, personal development, leadership and organization.  It is increasingly clear that our time is extraordinarily challenging.  We need to take a lesson from Einstein:  You can’t solve these problems with the thinking that created them.  We have the tools, but they are too little known.  Transition Centre is working to makes these tools more widely available and understood.

In 2018 Transition Centre reorganized under the banner of Resilient Communities.  The Transition Centre web site was completely rebuilt.  In addition to the web pages, there are links to the Centre Sustainability Master Plan and the four TC blog sites on the home page and other information.  A Resilient Communities interactive blog site is being developed.  

That year we asked the question: “What comes after sustainability?”  With the growing anxiety among climate scientist and public leaders about the prospects of mitigation, resource depletion, continued population growth, economic instability and related political unrest, there is a growing concern of taking this to another level.  This vision includes a post-industrial scenario.  Rather than manage, we must adapt and do so with foresight and deliberate action.  We must be innovative.  This requires an economic and entrepreneurial approach.  It must be self-financing.  This requires leadership; a form of leadership that mandates a capacity to see whole systems, to deal with complexity, and to take ambiguity as a given.  

Foodshed Strategy

Continuing our theme of local food, Transition Centre again raised the bar and launched its Foodshed Strategy program.  A foodshed is the area from which a community draws its food resources.  Today it is global.  The average distance our food travels from farm to plate is 1,500 miles.  Under a localization scenario it is more regionalized.  Rising cost of energy and other scare resources suggest more efficient localized food (and other goods) production.  As noted, Transition Center has made an economic argument for localization of food.  

We are conducting extensive research into a diverse range of foodshed systems and planning efforts.  Arguably the best model we found was the Vermont Farm to Plate program (link).  Our case study represents our approach to analysis and presentation – reducing a large volume of information into a summary format.  Our objective is to develop a range of foodshed strategies for the diverse array of conditions found across the country, both urban and rural, land-based and aquatic, dry lands, high density agriculture, hydroponics and aquaponics and markets.

Moving Forward

After six years, since we published our Centre Sustainability Master Plan, we began to update it.  What changes have occurred?  What evidence do we find of an emerging sustainability culture?  And, of far greater importance, how do we make the transition to the level of activity, of energy and focus, needed to achieve resiliency?  The document has been retitled “Transition Centre Resiliency Master Plan.”  It is a “blueprint” and not a plan per se.  It is comprehensive, systematic and holistic.  Using that blueprint we propose that communities can build their own organizations, develop plans and transform their local economy and build a more equitable society.

Transition Centre, as an organization, has evolved over a decade, with roots going back another decade and more. It is today an independent nonprofit organization with a mission of promoting resilient communities.  We have a diverse range of tools.  Our approach is comprehensive, practical and businesslike.  You can find these at www.transitioncentre.org.  

Crisis 2020

This document was first drafted and given limited distribution in January 2020.  “Moving Forward” was our plan.  We planned public meetings and a Vision 2050 campaign.  In March 2020 with the COVID – 19 pandemic and ensuing recession, everything changed.  From a 2050 vision we have shifted to an immediate, reliant, response.  

Our response consists of a reboot – back to basics.  The principles remain the same, we have our blueprint and we have local resources.  It requires a new steering group with representatives from leading sectors of the community. 

We are no longer looking at things that would be nice to have, not even things mandated by environmental issues.  This crisis will test the mettle of this society and its people.  There are a lot of variables in this 2020 Crisis.  There are a lot of contingencies.  There are a lot of new normals.  This will clearly be a test of the Transition/Resiliency model.  But then that is what Nature made us to do.  

The revised Transition Centre Resiliency Blueprint is intended to provide a foundation for recovery and transformation.

Transition Centre Resilient Communities Blueprint

Moving into a response to the 2020 crisis, Transition Centre revamped out "EDAP," the Centre Sustainability Master Plan.  It became a Resilient Communities Blueprint.  We asked:  

What does it take to create a resilient community, a community that can not only respond to emergencies but also  embrace dynamic transformational change?  Based on extensive research and over a decade of experience, the Transition Centre Resilient Communities Blueprint provides a template for a safe, secure, healthy and equitable community.

The link to the Executive Summary can be found on the home page of our website.  With attachments, it is a comprehensive document intended to serve a diverse range of communities.

We updated and completely revised our website.  

Sustainable Happy Valley

Our extended watershed region is known as Happy Valley.  It is in a long valley in the Appalachian Ridge and Valley formation that runs along the edge of the Appalachian Plateau at the center of the state of Pennsylvania.   The valley, essential the Spring Creek watershed, covers approximately 600 square miles and has a population of about 140,000.  It includes eighteen municipalities, one of which is the seat of the county government, a regional council of government and is home to Penn State University.  It is the economic hub of central Pennsylvania.  Transition Centre was established to serve that hub but has since expanded its influence.  

            One important five year following up (since our master plan) object was to update our list of organizations, programs and projects that play a role in the community's future resilience, that are located our have a major footprint in our region.  A digital copy of that inventory, which includes over 100 entities, can be found at this link.  

Rural Resilient Hub

            Transition Centre became engaged in a consortium of creative and experienced individuals with a broad array of skills to develop a program to establish resiliency hubs in rural communities across the US.  Transition US provided the initial introduction, the group has grown, and has developed a working plan.

            Rural communities across the United States have been in decline for decades.  Globalization closed local manufactures, big box stores shuttered main streets and industrial agriculture syphoned farm revenues.

            Populations steadily declined.  Poverty, crime and substance abuse became endemic.  The COVID pandemic has been further unsettling.

            Government programs have been marginal at best.  The continued decline of communities testifies to the inadequacies of outside aid.  

Rural Resilient Hub was formed to:

Revitalize distressed communities across the country to achieve a resilient economy, strong community and high quality of life.  RRH provides an integral framework for developing local strategies, workforce, business enterprises, education and governance.

Rural Resilient Hub Method

The RRH approach is driven locally.  It is grassroots.  It builds on the human and material resources of the community.

Our core principle is resiliency.  That is the capacity not just to fix what goes wrong but to innovate and thrive given the inevitable challenges of the coming decades.

The RRH method is integral:

·      It embraces all parts of the community:  government, business, education, faith and citizens.

·      It provides a systematic foundation for revitalizing the community economy and quality of life·

·      It creates the capacity to constantly innovate and adapt to the challenges of this century

Trnsition Centre Programming

The Transition Centre program can be found at www.transitioncentre.org.  

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[1] Nearly one-third of the total population are registered students at Penn State University.

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[1] Book review of Transition in Action:  https://transitioncentre.blogspot.com/2012/02/transition-in-action-totnes-and.html

[2] Borsodi legacy:  https://ralphborsodiconfidentfuture.blogspot.com.